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Maybe being sensational is unnecessary, but risk taking is absolutely necessary for science. Recently on HN: the story of John Paul Stapp, the fastest man on ea
by jallmann 12y ago
Maybe being sensational is unnecessary, but risk taking is absolutely necessary for science. Recently on HN: the story of John Paul Stapp, the fastest man on earth [1] [2]
Sensationalism, while perhaps strictly unnecessary, is inspiring, and that is very good for science. Anyway this jump was positively muted, especially compared to the publicity that Felix Baumgartner's jump got. Some attention is necessary; how else are we supposed to know about great feats people have accomplished, scientific or otherwise? Aside from news articles about the jump itself, there is a very informative website about the goals of the company behind this jump [3]
[1] http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8465306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8465306
[3] http://www.paragonsdc.com/stratex/ http://www.paragonsdc.com/stratex/
- davesque 12y agoDid I say "risk-taking is not good for science?" That's a straw man.
- drdeca 12y agoI'm not sure. They seemed to be taking the phrase "sensational risk taking" and evaluating the two parts separately. That is, considering whether risk-taking is good, and also considering whether making something sensational is good. They argued first that risk taking is necessary, and then on top of that, gave an argument that sensationalism can have some positive consequences. I think this (breaking the response into responses to the two parts) is probably quite distinct from a straw man, and except for potential problems from not specifically covering the interactions between the two parts, seems probably valid? Unless they edited the post since you responded, which I can't tell if that is the case or not. tl;dr: I don't think they were acting as if you said that?